


I Don't Wanna Be Okay Without You

by CloudSunflowerStrife



Category: Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: A Deeper Look Into Roche's Feelings And How He Feels For Cloud, M/M, Melancholy, Roche Character Study??, poetry??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:35:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23996098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudSunflowerStrife/pseuds/CloudSunflowerStrife
Summary: It’s an epiphany, it’s a breakdown, it’s a hurricane assaulting a heart and a mind,Yet when asked if he would change a single thing, Roche simply offers a soft smile and a shake of his head as a halo of golden hair is summoned to mind.
Relationships: Roche/Cloud Strife
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	I Don't Wanna Be Okay Without You

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the song 'I Don't Wanna Be Okay Without You' by Charlie Burg <3 Enjoy!

The honeysuckle breeze, so full of felicitous melancholy, soaks into the very marrow of tired bones.

It’s a welcome change, a careful cadence, a building crescendo, a feeling so familiar that it seems like muscle memory as it dances across frayed and broken nerves. 

It’s an epiphany, it’s a breakdown, it’s a hurricane assaulting a heart and a mind,

Yet when asked if he would change a single thing, Roche simply offers a soft smile and a shake of his head as a halo of golden hair is summoned to mind.

Like standing in the grass with his hands out wide in front of him, spinning and spinning until he can barely stand,

It takes a grip of him like a profound dose of gravity, a dizzying blur of physics and feelings that leaves him on an almost childlike sugar high.

For a broken mind, it’s euphoric, for a heart unused and abused, it’s healing,

And for a boy who’s never had a single constant positive thing to hold on to besides survival, it’s something he finds himself vowing to protect with his very life.

He knows he’s not worthy, a heart of gold weighed down with rust, optimism fighting a brain so clouded and diseased,

He knows that in the deck of prophetic cards that tell the tragedy of his life, Cloud’s face is merely an anecdote to be seen,

A wish, a desire, an aching and a yearning, but still a hand that he cannot grasp,

But as fingertips brush, eyes meet, and a smile is shared, he suddenly feels like he’d be content with just this small exchange, no matter how far out of grasp the other may seem.

Shinra is a lonely place and Roche is no liar,

Indeed if he were Cloud, living a life drenched in his own torrential rain of doubt, a swirling of constant synthetic discouragement, he’d be wandering in search of something as well,

Dreaming for the embrace of a single second of normality for the tired ache that sticks to his skin like an anxious sweat,

A calling for a veil to be lifted and the curtains to be torn away so he can finally breathe a sigh of relief and smile freely for once without fear of losing all he’s tirelessly worked for.

To the golden boy though, it seems like nothing but a fever dream,

A dismissive wave of sickeningly hopeful thoughts that he's hesitant to allow himself to be fooled by,

Like the bubbly weightless feeling of codeine working through a cold and warming the nerves until the brain is sure it’s floating on ecstasy,

Cloud can’t help but chase after that familiar fairytale feeling that eludes him so, 

A haze of water vapor that he endlessly struggles for while tripping over the humidifier at his feet.

It’s a familiar song and dance for the both of them, the aftershocks and tremors from past traumas dictating their actions more than their own conscious thought,

But it’s comfortable, in its own right, it's an unconventional brand of healing normality that pulls them towards each other,

Like a daydream or wishful thinking,

And when Roche finds himself looking into those same worn oceanic eyes, the same sweet color that seems to get brighter day by day, he can’t help but genuinely smile in unrestrained beatitude as the man he’s loved since they’d locked eyes blossoms into an enchanting crimson rose,

Shedding the thin petals of the spider lilies that clog his throat and steal his voice as he becomes something more,

Something bright and beautiful, something he’s deserved to be this entire time, free from the bindings of a sorrowful mind and finally shedding his burden. 

And it’s in that moment, for once, it’s not so bad to feel the jackrabbiting kicking against his ribcage tirelessly, not so bad to feel like he’s been rung around the rosy too many times,

It’s actually a feeling he’s started to anticipate, like the fun flop of his stomach on an adolescent carnival ride, a screaming blissful high that he only knows through word of mouth rather than first hand experience.

And truly, for once,

He’s no longer scared, no longer frightened and drowning in his own apathy,

He’s drifting somewhere close to what he’s always wanted, the piece of his life that he’s sure had been missing from the jigsaw that he’s slowly been putting together slightly crooked, slightly sideways and warped his entire life-

Alone in the darkness for so long,

Roche can finally feel something more.

**Author's Note:**

> @StrifeLovebot on Twitter if you wanna come say Hi <3


End file.
